The present invention relates to an apparatus that mounts articles such as bread, cakes, and other food materials (hereinafter referred to as the "food products" where applicable) so as to be lined up onto a packaging container, a baking tray, a belt conveyor, a band oven, and the like, and that delivers the food products that have been mounted in the lined up way to downstream processes in a manufacturing line along which food products are being transferred in a column or in a plurality of columns at irregular intervals.
Even if automatically made confections are to be continuously transported at an equal interval during the process of manufacturing bread, confections, or the like, such equal interval at which the confections are pitched may, in some cases, be lost due to defective operation during intermediate processes such as slippages during powder shake-down operation, forming process, or delivery between conveyors. Confections put at such irregular intervals must be lined up at the regular equal interval if such irregular intervals are considered no longer allowable in the downstream processes such as baking process and packaging process.
This lining-up operation has commonly been performed in mounting process.
The following two systems are mainly known in conventional mounting units.
(a) One system is such that a group of food products is mounted onto a receiving surface arranged under a discharge end section of a food product transferring conveyor after the discharge end section has been caused to withdraw a full stroke at a fixed speed. PA0 (b) The other system is such that food products are mounted onto a receiving surface one by one first by causing a discharge end section of a food product transferring conveyor to withdraw a predetermined distance every time a single food product has been detected by a food product detecting sensor arranged in the proximity of the discharge end section, and then by causing the discharge end section to wait in stoppage for a next food product.
Although commonly employed, the system (a) is disadvantageous in that a lining-up function is not provided. Therefore, under this system, food products that are transferred at irregular intervals are mounted at the same irregular intervals.
One example of the system (b) is disclosed in Japanese Utility Model Publication No. Hei. 6-8105.
This system provides the advantage of lining food products up, but is disadvantageous in requiring a stop time during the withdrawing operation of the discharge end section. Therefore, the withdrawing speed of the discharge end section must be increased so as to compensate for the stop time.
In this case, the discharge end section stops abruptly, and therefore receives enormous mechanical impact. Further, even if food products are transferred at an equal interval, this system still has to take care of similar mechanical burden due to such intermittent stoppage of the discharge end section that occurs regularly.
Still further, any system, not restricted to both systems (a) and (b), that has a food product detecting sensor arranged in the proximity of the axially moving discharge end section not only has to encounter the problem that an electric cable connecting the detecting sensor to a control unit is broken due to fatigue associated with the repeated axial movement of the discharge end section, but also requires preventive maintenance in which the old cable is replaced with a new one to prevent such breakage.